Making sense of the new playoff format

With a new high school football season kicking off tonight, the long-range whether (or-not-it-will-go-smoothly) forecast appears to be partly cloudy, at best.

BUDDY THOMAS

With a new high school football season kicking off tonight, the long-range whether (or-not-it-will-go-smoothly) forecast appears to be partly cloudy, at best.

Under the MIAA's newly implemented playoff format, all schools in the South section of the state (this section) must have scheduled a minimum of six or maximum of seven games between the opening weekend (Sept. 6-7) and cutoff weekend of Oct. 25-26 to be eligible for the playoffs, which begin the weekend of Nov. 1-2. The playoffs will continue for the next several weekends with sectional champions meeting in the state semifinals on the weekend of Nov. 22-23 and those winners advancing to the state championship games on Dec. 7.

Teams automatically qualify for the playoffs by finishing first or second in a league or conference with five or more teams — UNLESS a sectional playoff is "oversubscribed" by automatic qualifiers (more than eight teams). In that event, all top-ranked qualifying teams from each league or conference will be placed in the divisional bracket while the remaining second qualifiers will be ranked by a power-rating system to determine which teams fill the remaining slots. Leagues or conferences with less than five schools automatically qualify one team for the playoffs.

League and conference presidents had to submit to the MIAA office by this past Monday their choice of qualifying route (whether they would use league standings to determine first and second-place teams — along with tie-breaker information — or defer to the sectional power-ranking system which is based on the level of competition).

On Oct. 27, qualifying teams will be seeded by a playoff seeding committee while non-qualifying teams will have their remaining schedules determined by the non-playoff scheduling process which matches opponents according to the power-rating system. Non-playoff schools may file an appeal with their scheduling committee requesting a change of a Week 8-10 opponent if, for example, the school would be playing an opponent for the third time; the opponent happens to be a Thanksgiving opponent or for what the appealing team may feel is schedule inaccuracies.

To comply with the current playoff format, the South Coast Conference has split its nine-team family into two divisions. The A Division, which consists of five teams and presumably will send at least two teams to the playoffs, includes: Apponequet, Dighton-Rehoboth, Old Rochester, Seekonk and Wareham. The B Division, which automatically sends the top-ranked team to the playoffs, includes: Bourne, Case, Fairhaven and GNB Voc-Tech.

Since Apponequet plays Old Rochester and D-R is pitted against Seekonk on Thanksgiving Day and all four schools elected to keep the traditional series going and not play a second game within the qualifying period, only Wareham will meet all four of its A Divison opponents before the Oct. 25-26 playoff cutoff date. With that in mind, the SCC decided to base its A Division qualifying route on the six-game schedule each team will play against any conference opponent (crossover teams included) during the qualifying period. The SCC's B Division will be decided by the three games each of the four teams will play against each other. The true conference championship, however, won't be decided until after the Thanksgiving Day results are in and the won-lost records of all nine conference members are put in order.

The Big 3 will automatically send one member school to the playoffs and, because New Bedford and Durfee refused to move their traditional Thanksgiving Day game or water-it-down by playing a second game within the playoff qualifying period, the conference representative will be determined by the state's power-rating system in which a team receives 12 points for beating a team in a higher division (Durfee is now in Div. 2); 10 points for a win over a team in the same division or from a team outside the North and South sections; 8 points for beating a team in a lower division and — under the opponent's value table — 3 points for every win an opponent you have beaten has on its record and 1 point for every win an opponent that you lost to has on its record. Ties are half the value (1.5/0.5).

Bishop Stang has opted to keep its Thanksgiving Day date with Bishop Feehan, but will play the Shamrocks a second time within the qualifying period, which means all five members of the Eastern Athletic Conference will meet head-to-head before the cutoff date and presumably will play under the first- and second-place-team qualifying scenario. Ditto for Dartmouth, which continues to compete with Barnstable and Bridgewater-Raynham in the Old Colony League with all three teams playing each other before the playoff cutoff date.

Old Colony will attempt to qualify as a first- or second-place finisher in the Mayflower League Small School Division.

So, there it is. The new playoff system is in place and the grand experiment is set to begin this weekend. Like any new plan, it has its plusses and minuses and, sometime following the Dec. 7 state championship games, a final grade will be posted. From a whether (or-not-it-will-go-smoothly) standpoint, the forecast hasn't changed.

Cloudy, at best.

Buddy Thomas can be reached at bthomas@s-t.com

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